I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for supporting cell search in a wireless communication system.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication for multiple users by sharing the available system resources. Examples of such multiple-access systems include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) systems, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) systems, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) systems, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) systems.
A wireless communication system may include many base stations (or Node Bs) that support communication for many user equipments (UEs). A UE (e.g., a cellular phone) may be within the coverage of zero, one, or multiple base stations at any given moment. The UE may have just been powered on or may have lost coverage and thus may not know which base stations can be received. The UE may perform cell search to detect for base stations and to acquire timing and other information for the detected base stations.
Each base station may send synchronization transmissions to assist the UEs perform cell search. In general, a synchronization transmission may be any transmission that allows a receiver to detect a transmitter and obtain information such as timing, etc. The synchronization transmissions represent overhead and should be sent as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, the synchronization transmissions should allow the UEs to perform cell search as quickly and robustly as possible.